Scaling Ambition By Entrepreneur First

Entrepreneur First Co-Founder and CEO Matt Clifford interviews EF Hong Kong General Manager Lavina Tien exploring her background and the Hong Kong startup ecosystem. In this episode they discuss: - Lavina’s background and why she was excited by EF’s mission - The Hong Kong startup ecosystem and the opportunities in the area - EF’s partnership with HAX, the world’s leading early stage hardware investor This was a great conversation with some great insight into Lavina’s story and the Hong Kong ecosystem.

Joe White, Entrepreneur, CFO and General Partner at Entrepreneur First. An entrepreneur at heart, Joe founded his first business - a digital design agency - while still at university racking up big name clients like Disney, LSE and Bain & Company. He then went on to co-found Moonfruit, a DIY website platform, building and launching one of the world’s first SAAS products in the process. More recently Joe has become a prominent angel investor and got involved with EF back in 2015, investing in several portfolio companies before eventually becoming a General Partner and the company CFO – so he’s been an integral part of the company’s growth and expansion in recent years, culminating in the $115M first raise of the global fund earlier this year. In this episode Joe and I discuss: - The early days of Moonfruit and the nascent stages of the internet startup scene in the UK - How Joe helped steer the company through the dot com boom and bust in the early 2000s before exiting successfully years later - What star

Saikrishnan Ranganathan is the Co-Founder of SensorFlow, a company making buildings energy efficient at zero upfront cost. Hotels spend $40 billion on energy each year and commercial buildings spend $120 billion. These are not insignificant costs and the amazing thing is that with better automation these costs could be cut by up to 40%. People have been talking about applying IoT technology to create smart buildings for some time – but the challenges of doing this means nobody has really solved the problem. That’s where Sensorflow comes in - their end-to-end product, built on top of a proprietary network stack, let's them automate an entire building using a single gateway and optimizes energy consumption instantly with no need for complex installations. In this episode Sai and I discuss: - Why he left Goldman Sachs to start a company with EF - How Sai has learned to filter advice from third parties - The key hiring lesson Sai learned the hard way that has made a huge difference to growing his team I had the

Chris Mairs is an entrepreneur, Angel Investor and Venture Partner at EF. He is the co-founder of MetaSwitch, a communications technology business, where he was CTO for many years including a 2-year stint in Palo Alto working with his investors from Sequoia and their portfolio companies. More recently Chris has become a prominent angel investor, investing in over 70 companies, including many from EF – where he’s been involved from the very first cohort back in 2012. In this episode Chris and I discuss:  - The lessons he learned from building MetaSwitch, including a visit from Microsoft Founder Bill Gates to do due diligence on the company - The red flags that turn him off a co-founding team as an angel investor and the qualities he looks for in portfolio companies - How Chris met EF co founders Matt and Alice and how EF’s Companies have evolved since he got involved on the first cohort We also get into the tech trends that Chris is most excited about, his perspective on AI and blockchain and how he’s overcom

Today’s episode is a special one to celebrate the opening of EF Bangalore and in it, EF CEO Matt Clifford interviews EF Bangalore General Manager Esha Tiwary, exploring her background and the Indian startup ecosystem. When EF Co-Founders Matt & Alice decided to scale last year they made a list of the places where they believed EF could have the highest impact. India was high on that list  because of its extraordinary talent pool – half of Silicon Valley  is run by entrepreneurs and executives who started life in India. On top of this, founders no longer believe they have to leave the country to have an extraordinary impact - from Flipkart to Paytm, it’s clear that you can build globally competitive tech companies in India. In October 2018, we announced the opening of the office in Bangalore and that’s now kicking off this month January 2019, using the same model that has proven successful in London and Singapore and which expanded to Berlin, Hong Kong and Paris in 2018. Esha is the perfect person to laun

Tom Pocock is the Co-Founder of Credit Mint, a company that’s decentralising corporate lending by using a public blockchain as the shared ledger for corporate debt. The corporate debt industry is migrating from a bank-led model towards smaller lenders. But these new-wave lenders are tied to constant cycles of reconciliation, and trading is slow and expensive. On top of this, companies lose track of their creditors and the market is structurally illiquid.  That’s where CreditMint comes in - they fix these problems by using a public blockchain as the shared ledger for corporate debt. They provide a dealmaking platform; a trading layer; and a settlements facility, all communicating with one digital asset on Ethereum. Tom met his co founder Zac before they joined EF and since founding the company, another 2 ex-EFers have joined the Team – Joe Andrews and Arnaud Schenk – making CreditMint a perfect example of the magic of the EF mafia. Tom studied Mathematics at undergraduate and postgraduate level at Cambridge b

Rohit Jha is the Co-Founder of Transcelestial a company developing a laser communication solution to replace existing wireless communication technology. In the next decade 3 billion people and 50 billion devices will come online – but the global infrastructure we have in place at the moment isn’t sufficient to provide the required speed and flexibility to manage our needs as a planet.  And that’s where Transcelestial comes in – they’re developing the fastest, long-distance, point-to-point wireless communication network possible. This will be delivered as a space data network for terrestrial and satellite applications, which will use lasers to transfer data at up to 1000x faster than what’s currently available. Rohit met his co-founder Danesh on the first day of EFSG1 and since then the two have never looked back, going on to raise a seed round that included Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel and Wavemaker Partners.  Rohit earned a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from NTU and worked in the RBS FX E

Nadav Rosenberg is a General Partner and Head of Commercial at EF. Previously, he flew helicopters in the Israeli army for 10 years, worked as a consultant with McKinsey after earning an MBA from INSEAD and was a member of the founding team of Groupon in the UK. He also led Israeli startup Taboola’s expansion and operations in Europe and Australia before joining EF. One of the things that first time founders struggle with is commercialising their technology and building their client base in the early stages – and as any successful founder will tell you, it doesn’t matter how good your product is if you can’t sell it. Nadav is someone with a wealth of experience in selling and building partnerships in a diverse range of industries and his expertise in this field is something the founders he invests in value a great deal. In this episode Nadav and I discuss: - The key strategies that founders can apply to sell more effectively - What Nadav looks for in founding teams and the extent to which investing is an a

Jesse Shemen is the CEO and Co-Founder of Papercup, a company that auto-translates the voice track on videos into the world’s languages. People spend an average of 5 hours watching video every single day but the problem for creators looking to maximise views is that while subtitles are helpful, people want to hear videos in their own language and quality dubbing is prohibitively expensive. That’s where Papercup comes in - they auto-translate the voice track on videos using a groundbreaking approach that combines Bayesian neural networks and speech synthesis, which means that the speaker’s unique voice and emotion is recreated in another language. This means that in one click, you can reach the world’s 7 billion people rather than being restricted to the 1 billion English speakers in the world. Jesse met his co founder Jiameng on EF9 and since founding the company and pitching at the recent EF9 Demo Day, they’ve received a term sheet and are in the process of closing their seed round, as well as securing tr

Hannah Burrow is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kiroku, a company that automatically writes clinical notes for dentists. Kiroku which is Japanese for "to document or record” uses a unique combination of speech recognition and natural language processing to produce expert level notes which has the potential to save $40 billion worldwide in the dental market alone. Hannah met her co founder Jay on EF8 and since pitching to investors at Demo Day they’ve been developing the product further and are currently trialling it to a closed group of beta testers. Hannah qualified as a dentist from the University of Bristol and since then, she’s worked in practice, hospitals, and public health. While in practice she optimised her workflow by developing educational software for patients and joined EF8 with the intention of solving some of the problems she’d faced in the industry.   In this episode Hannah and I discuss: - Her experience in the dental industry and why she decided to join EF - The early stages of customer devel

Vadim Toader is the CEO Co-Founder of Proportunity a company that uses machine learning to form accurate real estate forecasts, so investors can make better decisions. By comparing more than 100 sets of data, including historical price growth and crime rates, Proportunity can spot good deals before the market, which enables them to make a data driven decision and help fund first time buyers by putting up a percentage of their deposit and helping with financing. Vadim met his co founder Stefan on EF7 and since founding the company they’ve worked with some of the country’s leading property players, have been backed by Savilles and have recently acquired a lender to help them offer better financing to customers. Vadim studied Engineering, Economics and Management degree at Oxford before working as a consultant at Bain & Co for over 3 years where he built up a wealth of valuation and forecasting experience, solving a bunch of interesting problems along the way. In this episode Vadim and I discuss: - Vadi

David Hunter is the CEO and Co-Founder of Optimal Labs a company that applies cutting-edge deep reinforcement learning to create intelligent autopilots for farms, improving the efficiency, reliability and quality of food production.  High tech greenhouses can produce 10-40x yield of traditional farming and they’re universally scalable and deployable anywhere. And the implications of AI controlled farms are potentially huge – with higher quality food, produced faster and more reliably, people will be able to live better for longer. David is one of the famous cases of someone who did EF twice – he was on EF4 and after met his Co-Founder Joao on EF7 the idea for Optimal Labs became a reality and before they knew it, they were following farmers around greenhouses in Holland and building solutions to their problems. He studied AeroNautical Engineering at Imperial and trained as a pilot in the Royal Airforce before going into the banking industry, where he eventually ended up running Deutsche Bank’s quantitative st

Jake Woodhouse is a member of the current EFLD10 cohort. Up to this point on the podcast I’ve spoken to EF Co-Founders Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck as well as the founders of some of EF’s most exciting companies.  But who better to speak to get a flavour of what EF actually does than someone in the middle of the current cohort in London – and that’s exactly what today’s episode with Jake is all about. Jake studied Management at University before working in the shipping industry for several years as a broker. He then developed an interest in startups, pursuing deals as an angel investor and launching his own energy tech startup before joining EF’s tenth London cohort that started at the beginning of April 2018. In this episode Jake and I discuss: - The initial experiences of the EF cohort at the program’s kick off weekend - The co-founder dating process on the program and the importance of having tough conversations - Jake’s insights into the balance between theory and practice in entrepreneurship  This wa

Dev Amratia is the CEO and Co-Founder of nPlan a company that uses machine learning to analyse construction schedules, determine where the biggest risks lie and then recommend improvements. Whether it’s a new stadium or transport system, construction projects are consistently delayed and nPlan is committed to solving this problem by using all available data on these projects to optimise planning schedules.  Dev and his cofounder Alan were on EF9, and since pitching at the EF Demo day here in London, they’ve gone on to become one of the highest valued EF companies at this stage of the start up journey, receiving four term sheets and counting.  Dev has worked for the UK Government, where he led the national review on AI and was previously a project manager with Shell where he saw first hand how challenges in scheduling can make or break construction projects. In this episode we discuss: - Dev's experience pitching at DemoDay and tips for founders preparing to pitch their business - How Dev has approached inve

Alice Bentinck co-founded EF with Matt Clifford in 2011, back when people thought the idea of inorganic team building was crazy. Seven years on, with the EF model validated from a number of successful exits and investment from Linkedin Co-Founder Reid Hoffman it’s clear that Matt and Alice weren’t that crazy after all. In this conversation with Alice we talk about the mechanics of the EF process and how it actually works, discussing a range of topics including: - The process of choosing the right co founder - The early days at EF and initial resistance to the idea of inorganic team building - The importance of focus and the difference between building a product and building a startup This was a great conversation and you’ll definitely leave with a deeper understanding of the EF process and some great insights into everything from finding a co-founder to developing a product. 

Joe Root is the Co-Founder of Permutive a company that helps publishers and marketers to customize user experience in real-time - on every device, across every channel. Joe and his co-founder Tim were on EF2 and their company has gone from strength to strength in recent years, dealing with millions of users for the world’s biggest publishers like The Times on a daily basis and recently raising their Series A round. Joe earned a BEng in computing from Imperial and a Masters in Computer Science at Oxford before working for Pact Coffee and GoCardless in Product and Sales roles respectively. In this conversation we dive into Joe’s personal story, everything he’s learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Permutive and what he’s learned about himself along the way.

Rafael Jorda Siquier is the founder of Open Cosmos, a company making space missions simple and affordable. They provide customers with a development kit and simulator so they can build the technology at their own pace and when they’re ready, Open Cosmos takes care of all the paperwork, integrates it into their nano-satellite alongside other customers and puts it into space. This has game changing implications for a number of industries, because making satellite more accessible opens up the potential for everything from the prediction of agricultural yields to the global internet of things and big infrastructure monitoring. Rafael was on EF5 and his company has made some remarkable progress in the last few years, turning Open Cosmos a one-stop shop to orbit and allowing for mass customization, which reduces costs from the millions down to a few hundred thousand. He is an aerospace engineer with an MBA and a background in both space startups and big industry players like Airbus where he was working before st

Alex Appelbe is the Co-Founder of Metis Labs a company providing general intelligence for industrial systems by using deep reinforcement learning to build the factory brain. Alex and his co-founder Bashir were on EF8 and they started Metis Labs by saving energy in processing factories - helping one of the largest beverage manufacturers in the world to reduce energy consumption in each of their locations. Alex is a mechanical engineer with a Master’s in Industrial Systems from Cambridge University and built 10 years of experience in the manufacturing sector before joining EF. In this conversation we dive into Alex’s personal story, everything he’s learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Metis Labs and what he’s learned about himself along the way.

Alesis Novik is a Co-Founder of AimBrain, AimBrain, a Biometric Identity as-a-Service platform for global financial institutions. Alesis and his co-founder Andrius were on EF3 and what they’re doing in simple terms is effectively replacing standard passwords and pins with voice, facial and behavioural recognition systems that can be used in isolation or in combination with each other. Alesis gained a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence from the Edinburgh and completed three years of PhD work before dropping out to start AimBrain and join EF. In this conversation we dive into Alesis’ personal story, everything he’s learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building AimBrain and what he’s learned about himself along the way.

Ed Miller is the Co-Founder of Scape, which is building the location infrastructure for city-scale augmented reality & location-based services. Ed and his co-founder Huub were on EF7 and their mapping and location technology allows devices to understand their position in the world, with incredible accuracy and efficiency, which is why they’ve been able to make such rapid progress since starting up. Ed has been working in the field of interactive imagery (VR, AR & 360 video) for the past 8 years. He started his first VR company whilst studying Philosophy & Psychology at university and produced interactive content for the likes of BBC, Vogue and the NHS. In this conversation we dive into Ed’s personal story, everything he’s learned about finding product market fit, hiring and funding in the process of building Scape and what he’s learned about himself along the way.